Then he gave a great bound and shout: but the numbers round him were too great, and they had him down again, and yet he struggled. This was sport to these savages, and those who were not wrestling with him leaped and yelled with delight to see it. And I wrestled and tore at my bonds; but they were of rawhide, and I could do nothing.
Then Harek said, breathing heavily:
"No good; their arms are like steel about me."
Then some came and dragged me back a little, and set me up sitting against a great stone, so I could see all that went on. Now I counted fifty men, and there were no women that I could see anywhere. Half of these were making a great ring with joined hands round the fire, and some piled more fuel on it--turf and branches of dwarf oak trees--and others sat round, watching the dozen or so that minded Harek. One sat cross-legged near me, with a great pot covered tightly with skin held between his knees.
Next they set Harek on his feet, and led him to the ring round the fire. Two of the men--and they were among the strongest of all--loosened their hands, and each gripped the scald by the wrist and yelled aloud, and at once the man beat on the great pot's cover drum-wise, and the ring of men whirled away round the fire in the wild dance whose foot beats we had heard as we came. Then those who sat round raised the chant we heard also.
I saw Harek struggle and try to break away; but at that they whirled yet more quickly, and he lost his footing, and fell, and was dragged up; and then he too must dance, or be haled along the ground. My eyes grew dizzy with watching, while the drum and the chant dulled into a humming in my brain.
"This cannot go on for long," I thought.
But then, from among those who sat round and chanted, I saw now one and now another dart to the ring and take the place of a dancer who seemed to tire; and so at last one came and gripped Harek's wrist and swung into the place of his first holder before he knew that any change was coming, and so with the one on the other side of him.
Then it was plain that my comrade must needs fall worn out before long, and I knew what I was looking on at. It was the dance of the pixies, in truth--the dance that ends but with the death of him who has broken in on their revels--and I would that I and Harek had been slain rather with Kolgrim by the stream yonder.
At last the scald fell, and then with a great howl they let him go, flinging him out of the circle like a stone, and he lay in a heap where they tossed him, and was quite still.